Thursday, 1 P.m. Session Sorted by Last Name

51 Armaan Akbar Physical Science and Engineering Biomimetic Small Diameter Vascular Graft Armaan Akbar; Matteo Solazzo; Paulo Gonzalez; Daniel Jacobs; Michael Luketich; Rich Hoff, MA; Antonio D'Amore, PhD; William Wagner, PhD Current methods utilized in coronary bypass include the use of synthetic as well as biologic tissue derived small diameter vascular grafts; while relatively effective on the short term, these scaffolds are affected by a number of issues such as: inadequate mechanics or mechanical mismatch, re-stenosis due to intimal hyperplasia or thrombosis. This study aims to introduce a novel processing technique for small-diameter tissue-engineered vascular graft (TEVG) mimicking the three-layer native vessel structure and mechanics. The current prototype combines the synthetic and biologic graft approach with a three-layer structure of anatomically distinct components designed to duplicate native tissue heterogeneity. The three graft layers are processed with electrospinning (ES), thermal induced phase separation (TIPS) of polyester urethane urea, and decellularized small intestinal submucosa tissue gel (SIS-ECM). The grafts are designed so that the ECM facilitates cell recruitment and tissue growth within the tunica media, while the dry ES layer prevents cell infiltration from the tunica intima. Compliance and suture retention forces of the graft have shown to be comparable to native porcine coronary arteries. SEM and histological analyses have indicated that microstructural and macrostructural dimensions of the graft are comparable with those of native tissue.